KANGIQLINIQ/RANKIN INLET - Junior resource company Comaplex Minerals thinks its long-in-gestation Meliadine gold project could be ready to start production as early as 2011.

Workers with Comaplex Minerals walk around the future opening of a tunnel leading underground to the company's Meliadine gold mine north of Rankin Inlet. The ramp was completed last month. The mine is tentatively scheduled to begin production in late 2011 or early 2012. - photo courtesy of Comaplex Minerals

Comaplex first staked the project, a mere 24 km north of Rankin Inlet, in the late 1980s. A number of changes in title over the years meant the company itself didn't start exploratory drilling on Meliadine (pronounced meh-la-dine) until 2003.

Since then, a total of about 30 people, including some local help from Rankin Inlet, have been working on the site every summer.

The installation of a 1,044-metre decline ramp to access the mine, which will be predominantly underground, was finished in August.

"We love the project. We think it's got tremendous potential," said Mark Balog, chief operating officer for Comaplex. "We'd like to think it will be (ready by) late 2011, early 2012."

Meliadine, which Balog estimated could have a mine life between eight and 12 years, is made up five deposits in total. The largest of them, the Tiriganiaq deposit (Tiriganiaq meaning "fox" in Inuktitut), is "the main deposit that's going to carry the anticipated mine," said Balog.

The next step is drafting a scoping study.

"That is (the) first step in determining what the project will look like," said Balog. "It tells you how you would go about mining this thing and roughly what it would cost without getting into details."

It's too early to say what the price tag will be or how many people will be required to staff the mine, said Balog.

Once the scoping study is completed, a feasibility study detailing how the infrastructure for the mine will be built will follow.

In the meantime, the company must contend with a lack of qualified mine workers in Nunavut.

"I think there's not enough trained people in Rankin right now (for) the detailed, high-end jobs," said Balog. "You need engineers, you need geologists, you need experienced miners.

"People are going to have to come from the south. But Northern people will get trained."

Rankin Inlet Mayor Lorne Kusugak said he's confident training will begin once the project's future becomes more clear. He said the economic benefit to Rankin Inlet, which already supplies some help to Comaplex during the summer in form of kitchen and drilling helpers, will be "tremendous."

And once the mine is fully open and in production, Comaplex will attract more people than it does for summer exploration gigs, said Kusugak.

"Once the mine is operational, there's going to be a road there and the people who live in Rankin will be able to go to work in the morning, work a shift and then go back to town," he said.

"I can't see it not happening. It would make sense for them to build a road."

Currently there is an all-weather road from Rankin Inlet ending within 15 km of Meliadine, but all access to the property is achieved via helicopter year-round.

During the winter, supplies are hauled in on a separate quad trail using ATVs.